Eliana Willis

Peter-verreussel/Getty Images As AI evolves to successfully take on business, personal, and even medical use cases, its capabilities also increasingly make it a security threat. On Tuesday, researchers at identity validator Okta published a report that found hackers are using v0, an AI website creation tool from Vercel, to create “phishing sites that impersonate legitimate […] More

23andMe / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET23andMe’s interim CEO Joseph Selsavage recently told Congress that roughly 1.9 million customers (about 15% of its 15 million users) have asked to delete their genetic data amid the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy and subsequent sale approval to TTAM Research Institute.I was one of 23andMe’s early adopters. I wanted to trace my French and Ashkenazi Jewish roots, and in its early days, the service provided fascinating family-history insights. But after nearly two decades of growth — peaking at a $6 billion valuation in 2021 — 23andMe is a shell of its former self. Its pivot to drug research and development failed to gain traction, and a major October 2023 data breach torpedoed any remaining customer trust, driving the company to lose over 99% of its value by 2024. Also: A drug developer is buying 23andMe – what does that mean for your DNA data?Now, with millions of genetic profiles, including mine, caught in bankruptcy limbo, there have been worries about who will control this vast trove of sensitive DNA data. California’s attorney general has even urged customers to delete their records, pointing out that, unlike medical information protected under HIPAA, direct-to-consumer genomic data lacks strong federal privacy safeguards. It didn’t help that, for a little while, there was a potential looming sale of 23andMe to pharmaceutical maker Regeneron.However, on June 30, a US bankruptcy judge approved the $305 million sale of 23andMe’s data assets to TTAM Research Institute — a nonprofit led by 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki. The institute has promised to improve privacy policies and to continue to allow customers to delete their data. A small group of states (California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah) remain opposed and have until July 7 to seek a stay to appeal the order. If you’re still uneasy about your genetic information falling into the wrong hands, or being tied indefinitely to pharmaceutical research you didn’t explicitly authorize, you still have the power to delete it. Here’s how. How to delete your 23andMe data What you’ll need: A 23andMe account and the ability to access your account either from a PC or a mobile device. More

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETGoogle has patched yet another critical security bug in Chrome, which means all of you who use the browser should update it ASAP. On Monday, the company revealed a high-severity vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to run malicious code on your system.In its release notes for the latest version of Chrome, Google pointed to the security flaw tagged as CVE-2025-6554. The NIST page on this one describes it as: “Type confusion in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 138.0.7204.96 allowed a remote attacker to perform arbitrary read/write via a crafted HTML page.”Also: This Google Chrome update could change the fundamentals of browsing – here’s who gets to try it firstV8 is an open-source JavaScript and WebAssembly engine that Google uses in Chrome. Here, a programming problem in the code could give a remote attacker the means to create a malicious web page designed to steal data, install malware, or take over your system. The vulnerability has already been exploited in the wild, which means the bad guys are onto it and have used it to target unsuspecting Chrome users.This particular bug was discovered by Clément Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group on June 25. To assist with its bug-hunting efforts, Google’s researchers typically turn to such tools as AddressSanitizer, MemorySanitizer, UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer, Control Flow Integrity, libFuzzer, and AFL.Thankfully, Google has rolled out a fix for this flaw with the latest versions of the browser, specifically version 138.0.7204.96/.97 for Windows, 138.0.7204.92/.93 for the Mac, and 138.0.7204.92 for Linux.How to update ChromeTo update Chrome, open the browser, click the three-dot icon at the top, move to Help, and select About Chrome. The program will automatically download and install the latest update. Relaunch Chrome, and you’ll be fully protected, at least until the next critical vulnerability rolls around. More

Kerry Wan/ZDNETDid you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most popular TV models utilize automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of ad surveillance technology that gathers information about everything you watch and transmits it to a centralized database. Manufacturers then use your data to identify your viewing preferences, enabling them to deliver highly targeted ads.Also: Your TV’s USB port is seriously underutilized: 5 features you’re not taking advantage ofWhat’s the incentive behind this invasive technology? According to market research firm eMarketer, in 2022, advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads, and those numbers are only going up.To understand how ACR works, imagine a constant, real-time Shazam-like service running in the background while your TV is on. It identifies content displayed on your screen, including programs from cable TV boxes, streaming services, or gaming consoles. ACR does this by capturing continuous screenshots and cross-referencing them with a vast database of media content and advertisements. More